Modeling of Hydrogen Separation using Silica/Alumina Membrane

Abstract :

Recently, notwithstanding abundance of hydrogen sources and also industrial development of membrane separation process it can be said hydrogen membrane separation after its productions processes especially through renewable sources can be good to solve human problems especially in the environment issues. This article is a study of a symmetrical two-dimensional modeling with finite element method (FEM) for separating hydrogen from synthesis gas mixture via porous ceramic membrane with COMSOL multiphysics. The main equations of this issue are diffusion and convection and the continuity equation used for concentration distribution profile of membrane and tube and shell sides. Porous ceramic membranes with high chemical and physical stability cannot provide a high purity hydrogen product. But as we have seen a major achievement by deposition of silica after 12 hours the selectivity of the membrane for hydrogen permeance increased From 2.7 to more than 1,000 and the hydrogen purity increased from 91.5 percent to more than 99.9 percent and also by offering some recommendations in changing process parameters The ceramic membrane selectivity can raise for example by increasing the pressure from 1.59 to 2.02 bar selectivity reduced to 86% or with increasing the є/τ from 0.49 to 0.6 selectivity increase more than 2 fold.